" 'We tell ourselves stories to keep ourselves alive,' says Joan Didion. And so gay writers are doing just that, in our varied and inexhaustible ways. Too many of us find ourselves in a world whose narrative is ill-fitting. We try to set the story right, to make it more reflective of the lives we lead. We work to master our craft, to enrich the story of the given with other, more challenging versions. Here are twenty-one of the best."
-from the Foreword by Bernard Cooper

If there are certain common denominators of gay life today -- desire, coming out, the specter of AIDS -- the lives of American gay men must still be charted along a broad spectrum of experience and emotion. This second annual anthology in the acclaimed Best American Gay Fiction series celebrates the diversity of gay life as it brings together an impressive array of voices.

Drawn from mainstream and alternative publications, including periodicals, books, 'zines, and online sources, the writings gathered here represent the best gay fiction published in 1996. The stories differ widely in tone, form, theme, and perspective -- ranging from recollections of childhood to tales of romance and seduction, from highly charged erotic encounters to a rueful meditation on aging and beauty. The book encompasses outstanding new work by well-known writers as well as brilliant and original stories by emerging talents, among them new African American, Latino, and Asian American writers. Together, these twenty-one stories form a collection that reflects the richness, the excitement, and the complexity of gay life in America today.

Includes fiction by:

• Stephen Beachy
• Mitchell Cullin
• David Ebershoff
• Gary Fisher
• Andrew Holleran
• Tom House
• Ishmael Houston-Jones
• John R. Keene
• Kevin Killian
• Russell Leong
• R. Zamora Linmark
• Paul Lisicky
• Michael Nava
• Kolin J. M. Ohi
• Dale Peck
• D. Travers Scott
• Scott Thomas
• William Sterling Walker
• Donald Windham
• Karl Woelz
• David Wojnarowicz

Praise for the first Best American Gay Fiction anthology:

"An annual series that promises to take gay belles lettres out of its literary ghetto...The fiction gathered here is united more by its quality than its queerness...The word best is entirely accurate."
-Out

"Proof of another very good year for gay writers is in this anthology, with its mix of subtle voices, its hints of varying proclivities, and its musculature formed of so much palpable and poetic language. I felt younger, happier, and more dangerous after reading it."
-Brad Gooch

Full of humor, profundity, and obsession, these are tales of writers on peregrine paths. Some set out in search of legends or artistic inspiration; others seek spiritual epiphany or fulfillment of a promise. Their journeys lead them variously to Dracula's castle, Laura Ingalls Wilder's prairie, the Grimms' fairy-tale road, Mayan temples, Nathaniel West's California, the Camino de Santiago trail, Scott's Antarctica, the Marquis de Sade's haunted manor, or the sacred city of Varanasi. All of these pilgrimages are worthy journeys-redemptive and serious. But a time-honored element of pilgrimage is a suspension of rules, and there is absurdity and exuberance here as well.

Whether exploring topics unique to the gay experience, reinventing a genre from a gay perspective, or observing straight life through queer eyes, the stories in the third volume of this acclaimed anthology series offer compelling evidence that gay writers are producing some of the finest new fiction in America today. Best American Gay Fiction 3 highlights both outstanding new work by well-known writers and exciting and original stories by emerging talents.

The writers represented in this volume are:

Keith Banner Justin Chin Dennis Cooper Alfred Corn James Currier J Eigo Thomas Glave Robert Glück Andrew Sean Greer Allan Gurganus Scott Heim William Haywood Henderson Tom House Eric Gabriel Lehman Matt Bernstein Sycamore Peter Weltner